At least Sherman got Fined.

[RazorStar 4,025]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000737164/article/richard-sherman-fined-for-hit-on-dan-carpenter

 

 

 

Sherman told The Associated Press on Thursday he was fined by the NFL for his hit on Bills kicker Dan Carpenter during a field-goal attempt before halftime of Seattle's 31-25 win.

Sherman was deemed offsides on the play, but Dean Blandino, the NFL senior vice president of officiating, later acknowledged that the hit "should have been unnecessary roughness."

"The referee didn't think that the contact (from Sherman) was severe enough, he felt that players were coming together and he just didn't think it was a foul," Blandino said. "We looked at it, it is a foul."

Game officials went easy on Sherman, but the league office has taken a different route.

 

The price you pay for winning football games, I suppose.

[Bucman 891]

The NFL needs to discipline refs for poor performance

[BC 331]

What an atrocious fine. Another one that is completely unnecessary. He went in there and touched the ball. He was blocking the kick. It's supposed to be a clean play unless you do something extra malicious that results in some type of action other than try to cause a muffing of the ball or blocking the kick.

[Sarge+ 3,436]

No.

 

 

It was clearly a dirty hit and he should have been flagged at the time. You really have some Seahawks glasses on if you think otherwise.

[blotsfan 2,112]

He only reached for the ball after positioning himself to hit Carpenter's knees.

[seanbrock 1,684]

I mean, at the very least that has to be unnecessary roughness or some time of personal foul right? lol

 

I'm not going to say he tried to hurt the guy, so I'm not sure I could rule it targeting personally. It's possible he thought the play was live. I've never seen a kick get blocked like that where a guy is so far in the backfield he probably didn't know what to do. If he did purposely go out to try and hurt Carpenter though that's real fucked up.

[BC 331]

He did think it was live, and it was live. The whistle for an offsides penalty (defense) doesn't get blown until the play is over, therefore the play remained live. The only way to carry out a successful play in that situation is to run full speed in the direction of the ball and prevent it from being kicked or deflect the kicked ball. Even if he had known about the offsides penalty he had committed, your job as a defense is to not allow a better outcome than the 5 yard penalty to occur, i.e. a first down or a successful field goal.

 

Would anyone who considers it dirty accept a defensive player on their team not attempting to do what they physically need to do to prevent the offense from scoring/ making the line-to-gain?

 

In response to blots - there is no guarantee a field goal formation indicates the offense is attempting a scrimmage kick. People calling this dirty are assuming Sherman could have prevented positive gain by the offense in some other guaranteed way, which isn't really the case...

Edited November 11, 2016 by BC

[oochymp 2,393]

if he's just trying to block the kick why is his shoulder lowered rather than his arms raised?

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

He did think it was live, and it was live. The whistle for an offsides penalty (defense) doesn't get blown until the play is over, therefore the play remained live. The only way to carry out a successful play in that situation is to run full speed in the direction of the ball and prevent it from being kicked or deflect the kicked ball. Even if he had known about the offsides penalty he had committed, your job as a defense is to not allow a better outcome than the 5 yard penalty to occur, i.e. a first down or a successful field goal.

 

Would anyone who considers it dirty accept a defensive player on their team not attempting to do what they physically need to do to prevent the offense from scoring/ making the line-to-gain?

 

In response to blots - there is no guarantee a field goal formation indicates the offense is attempting a scrimmage kick. People calling this dirty are assuming Sherman could have prevented positive gain by the offense in some other guaranteed way, which isn't really the case...

 

He could have prevented positive gain by blocking the kick and not going at the kickers knees.

 

Even assuming he was stupid enough not to think he was offsides, he took longer to block the kick by throwing his body / shoulder into the player. It would have been faster and wouldn't have been a penalty (again, assuming he wasn't offsides) if he took that angle and outstretch his arms / hands towards the ball. That's usually how ST is taught anyway, because you absolutely don't want a roughing call there.

[Thanatos 2,847]

He did think it was live, and it was live. The whistle for an offsides penalty (defense) doesn't get blown until the play is over, therefore the play remained live. The only way to carry out a successful play in that situation is to run full speed in the direction of the ball and prevent it from being kicked or deflect the kicked ball. Even if he had known about the offsides penalty he had committed, your job as a defense is to not allow a better outcome than the 5 yard penalty to occur, i.e. a first down or a successful field goal.

 

Would anyone who considers it dirty accept a defensive player on their team not attempting to do what they physically need to do to prevent the offense from scoring/ making the line-to-gain?

 

In response to blots - there is no guarantee a field goal formation indicates the offense is attempting a scrimmage kick. People calling this dirty are assuming Sherman could have prevented positive gain by the offense in some other guaranteed way, which isn't really the case...

 

The whistle does in fact get blown for offsides when it is unabated to the kicker/QB, which it clearly was. This is dirty as fuck, only Seahawks fans think otherwise.

[WeaponX20 26]

Whats with Seahawks fans always defending them dirty ass players who gets away with everything, Sherman is super dirty and bitches when people call him out on it LMAO

[BC 331]

You're right than, it was technically called as unabated which I left out. However, the whistle in fact was not blown in this case, which told Richard to keep playing.

 

I had listened to John Clayton's radio show the morning after the fine was assessed. There is a podcast of it here: http://sports.mynorthwest.com/category/podcast_player/?a=10012544&sid=1141&n=John%20Clayton. Put the podcast player at 6:30 which is when John is addressing the issue, while quoting both Dean Blandino and Mike Pereira, two of the main "publicists" of officiating. This segment of the show was really where I took my stance in my above posts from.

 

It's an interesting debate, because nobody can agree on what you can and can't do to the kicker in that case.

 

I do agree that there are ways to block a kick other than "lowering your shoulder" as oochymp remarked, but how do you know when they are kicking vs faking?

Edited November 12, 2016 by BC